Holding Back the Wind

A new report says that wind power can’t grow without extensive new transmission investments.

October 23, 2008

Stock market aside, there’s one area with possible 750
percent growth in the next 10 years: wind power. While lower oil prices and
tight credit are hurting alternative energy investments in the short term, today
the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)–a
nonprofit established by the electric utility industry–predicted the huge
growth of wind power in the United States and Canada through 2007. But it also warned
that the transmission system to bring wind power to market is lagging. While
more transmission investments are expected, they’ll be outpaced by the growth
of new power plants, including wind farms, according to NERC’s new report on the state of the nation’s transmission system.
In a statement, Rick Sergel, the CEO of NERC, put it simply: “We need more
transmission resources to maintain reliability and achieve environmental
goals.” He added, “Faster siting, permitting, and construction of transmission
resources will be vital to keeping the lights on in the coming years.” Today,
less than 1 percent of U.S.
electricity comes from wind. But projects are planned for Texas,
the Midwest, the mid-Atlantic, and western
states and Canadian provinces.

Tagged

I’m MIT Technology Review’s senior writer, interested in a wide range of topics including climate change, energy, and information and communication technologies. Recent projects have included traveling to China to write about GMO crop… More development there, and Germany to explore how they’ll try to ramp up renewable power while closing down nuclear plants. My 2008 feature on the Obama campaign’s social-networking operation was selected for The Best Technology Writing 2009.